In preparation for the New York Times article, “In the Next Chapter, Is Technology an Ally?,” Ray Kurzweil engaged in a conversation with computer scientist Peter Neumann, science fiction author Bruce Sterling, law professor Lawrence Lessig, retired engineer Severo Ornstein, and cryptographer Whitfield Diffie, addressing questions of how technology and innovation will be shaped by the tragic events of September 11, 2001.… read more

September 27, 2001 by Jim Lehrer News Hour

David Gergen, editor-at-large of U.S. News and World Report, talks with inventor Ray Kurzweil about his prediction that computers will attain the memory capacity and computing speed of the human brain by around 2020.… read more

Silicon Valley entrepreneur Steve Kirsch has an idea for preventing skyjacking: we install panic buttons that put the plane on forced autopilot, randomly select one of the nearest airports capable of accommodating that plane type, and automatically land the aircraft.… read more

Brain fingerprinting, a technique proven infallible in FBI tests and US Navy tests and accepted as evidence in US courts, could accurately identify trained terrorists before they strike. Had it been in place on September 11, it would have prevented all of the attackers from boarding the planes, says Infoseek founder Steve Kirsch.… read more

November 8, 2001 by Washington National Cathedral

Are We Becoming an Endangered Species? Technology and Ethics in the 21st Century will bring together a panel of leading experts on November 19 at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. to explore the ethics of technological advances, especially as they relate to genetic engineering, nanotechnology and robotics. The panelists are Bill Joy, author, and co-founder and chief scientist of Sun Microsystems, Ray Kurzweil, author, inventor and president of Kurzweil Technologies, Anne Foerst, visiting professor for Theology and Computer Science at St. Bonaventure University and Bill McKibben, author, environmentalist and visiting scholar at Middlebury College.… read more

November 9, 2001 by J.C.R. Licklider, Robert Taylor

This landmark 1968 essay foresaw many future computer applications and advances in communication technology, such as distributed information resources and online interactive communities that are commonplace today as Internet chat rooms and peer-to-peer applications.… read more